Trump says he will declare national emergency if issues are not resolved by mid Feb.

by Associated Press

Saturday, January 26th 2019

Trump says he will declare national emergency if issues are not resolved by mid Feb.

President Donald Trump says he will declare a national emergency to build his U.S.-Mexico border wall if there is no deal with Congress by mid-February.

Trump agreed Friday to end a partial government shutdown and reopen shuttered agencies for three weeks so both sides can continue negotiating over Trump's demand for billions of dollars to build his long-promised wall.

Asked how confident he was of reaching a deal by the Feb. 15 deadline, Trump said, "If we can't do that then ... obviously we're going to do the emergency."

Declaring a national emergency would allow Trump to bypass Congress and use existing money to start building the wall.

Trump previously floated the idea of declaring a national emergency. But he held off, saying he wanted to pursue a deal with Congress.